The present invention relates generally to the process of threading ferrite core memories with wires to manufacture memory devices for electronic computers, logical automatic machines, control communications and test circuits and in particular, to a method and apparatus for manufacturing 3-D memories.
The prior art teaches only a manual procedure of manufacturing 3-D memories in which every core is threaded with two or three wires along the three axes of the Cartesian system. Such memories are inherently of very low capacities and were used in the first computers when memory devices were made of bulky ferrite cores. The manual manufacturing procedure consisted in sequential threading of every core included in the 3-D memory with wires in three mutually orthogonal directions.
Insurmountable engineering problems, extremely low storage capacities, lack of maintainability, on the one hand, and the development of advanced topologies for flat 2-D matrices, on the other, underlie the need for 3-D memories which would enjoy major advantages with respect to flat memories but are not in use in the modern computer technology and are considered feasible only theoretically.
Among the drawbacks of the manual threading of cores in 3-D memories are exceedingly low labour efficiency, overloads for the eyes of the assembly-man, impossibility of testing the quality of cores in the course of threading and no means of repairing damaged cores inside the memory. These drawbacks limit the capacity of such memories and make them extremely expensive.
Known in the art are a number of various procedures of manufacturing flat 2-D ferrite matrices. One of them which is functionally the closest to the procedure of manufacturing 3-D memories proposed herein consists in that ferrite cores are strung beforehand in columns onto wires running along the Y-coordinate direction, and these wires are positioned in a row on a frame parallel to one another and secured in pick-up point assemblies with slight tension. Then a single core is detached from every column. The detached cores are oriented in a row along the X-coordinate direction and the row of oriented cores threaded with a wire coiled into a helix in such a way that when the helix is rotated and fed in simultaneously its end will thread all the cores in the row one by one. Then the helix is straightened to form a matrix line in the X-coordinate direction. The cores on the threaded line are tested and the damaged ones, if any, are rejected, after which the assembled line is secured in the place provided for it in the flat matrix being manufactured. The subsequent weaving procedure is carried out in a similar way line by line until the matrix is complete.
A drawback of this method consists in that it can not be used to manufacture 3-D memories in which coordinate wires would run along three mutually orthogonal directions in volume.
A device for manufacturing 2-D matrices of ferrite cores which realises the above method comprises pick-up point assemblies securing wires with cores strung onto them and a folder mounted on the frame of the device and made as a roll having a longitudinal guide in the form of a groove which detaches a line of cores -- one core on every wire -- running transversely to the Y-wires. Wires with ferrite cores strung onto them run round one side of the roll, the wires being arranged along the roll at equal intervals.
Installed near the butt-end of the roll is a mechanism for coiling a helix of the wire used to thread the detached row of cores along the X-coordinate direction. The pitch of the helix is equal to the interval between every two wires on the roll. The device is provided with means for straightening the wire coiled into a helix and for positioning the threaded core line into the frame of the flat matrix.
This device can not be used for threading memories in which coordinate wires run along all the axis directions of the Cartesian system.